Fans, such as pedestal fans, are well known in the art. Such fans allow positioning of the fan above the floor, and usually have a yoke attached to tubing which is carried in a base; the yoke being attached to the fan by a pair of thumbscrews, which extend through the ends of the yoke into captive nuts in the grills surrounding the fan blades. An example of such fans is shown in my prior U.S. Pat. No. 5,368,445. While these fans are satisfactory, the yoke style of mounting the fan requires that the two thumbscrews be loosened to rotate the fan and then tightened. Due to the frictional forces between the yoke and the thumbscrews, these fans may not stay in the position where they are placed and the fan may rotate to an undesirable position due to loosening of the thumbscrews.
Conventional pedestal fans include a counter balance spring to maintain the position of the fan head and a thumbscrew arrangement requiring the user to loosen the thumbscrew to reposition the fan head followed by a re-tightening of the thumbscrew to secure the fan head in position. This has disadvantages, however, in that the degree of pivoting was limited to less that 45 degrees due to the torsional pressure exerted by the counter balance spring, in addition to the extra steps required by the user in the loosening/tightening operations.
It is desirable to reduce the number of parts and to provide a fan that can be tilted without the necessity of loosening or tightening any thumbscrews, and which fan is retained in the position where it is placed.
The fan of the present invention can be readily positioned for airflow and the direction maintained or varied as desired without the use of a counterbalance spring or a thumbscrew, and which provides other positive advantages.